Posts Tagged ‘Google AdWords’

Managing an AdWords campaign not only involves researching relevant keywords, writing ads and adjusting bids; it also includes monitoring click through rates to determine the effectiveness of those ads, keywords and campaigns. When we provide our detailed monthly reports to our clients, those click through rates are one of the top items we highlight. So it is no surprise that clients ask:

Just What Is The Average AdWords Click Through Rate?

Different people will tell you different things, and each industry is different. Unfortunately, there is no real official answer from Google. However, a Google representative did say in a Google AdWords Help thread that a good average AdWords click through rate to aim for would be 2%.

Again, this is an average. What might be good for a general search term with a lot of impressions might not be a good average click through rate for a more targeted, less searched term with fewer impressions. The important take away is to continually monitor your AdWords click through rate because it identifies which keywords and ads are not performing well and need to be addressed through new ad copy, split testing, more targeted ad groups or higher bids for better ad placement.

You not only want a better click through rate for the additional traffic it drives, but to help increase your AdWords quality score, which helps you increase ad position with lower bids. So stay on top of those rates!

Maybe you missed it because of the long holiday weekend, but Google announced that over the next few weeks it will be charging for clicks on the directions link in your AdWords ads on both Google.com and Google Mobile. Google started charging for phone number link clicks in the ads quite a while back. So this should probably come as no surprise.

An AdWords Location Extension Is A Valuable Ad Component – So Look Before You Leap Away From the Cost

A location extension and its correlating direction link provide local searchers with valuable additional information that could entice them to select you over your competitors. So don’t rebel just yet. First determine your return on investment. Along with this new directions click fee, Google will be providing performance metrics for directions clicks alongside those for regular clicks and phone call clicks. You can also see previous metrics for the free directions clicks. Just select Free clicks within the dimensions tab of your AdWords account.

If after your analysis you decide that the return is not great enough to keep the location extension and directions link, you will need to remove the locations extensions from your AdWords campaign completely.

If you have an AdWords campaign, most likely you have targeted your ads to specific geographic locations, be it by country, state, city, or region. Well now you have even more control over who sees your ads. This week Google added two new targeting methods: (1) targeting by physical location and (2) excluding by physical location and search intent.

How the enhanced AdWords location targeting works

Targeting using physical location. If you own a florist in New York City, with the location targeting available prior to this week, you had to pick a target location. You probably picked New York City. Your ads would be shown to people in New York City as well as people who included the term New York City and your keywords in their search query. Now you can target New York City using physical location only. This will limit viewers of your ads to those in the New York City area who use keywords in your campaign in their search query. BUT keep in mind this will also prevent people outside of New York City searching for “new york city florist” from seeing your ad – even if this is one of your keywords.

Excluding by physical location and search intent. Let’s again say you are a New York City florist and you are not affiliated with FTD. You have agreements with florists in some additional states, but not others. You don’t want to limit your ads to New York City, but you don’t want them to show throughout the entire country. You can now exclude what states you “don’t” want your ads to be shown in.

If the previous AdWords location targeting had been limiting your marketing campaigns, try these new options.